The present invention relates to excavation buckets. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with excavation buckets incorporating an impact actuator assembly.
The prior art is replete with configurations of excavating buckets designed to better dig into hard soils.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,438 entitled: xe2x80x9cExcavating bucket having power driven, individually controlled digging teethxe2x80x9d issued on Dec. 2, 1986 to Daniel S. Mozer describes an excavating bucket having a leading edge provided with a row of individually pneumatically driven digging teeth. Each digging tooth is connected to a pneumatic impact hammer that reciprocates the tooth at high speed and with great force.
The excavating bucket described by Mozer has several drawbacks. For example, since pneumatic impact hammers are used, the earth working machine to which the excavating bucket is mounted must be provided with an air compressor and adequate supplemental conduits between the air compressor and the bucket. Also, since each tooth is connected to an individual pneumatic impact hammer, the total weight of the excavating bucket is much higher than the weight of a conventional bucket, which is a disadvantage when the arm of the earthmoving machine is fully extended, since conventional earth moving machines are generally designed to move weights similar to the weight of conventional buckets. Yet another drawback of the excavating bucket of Mozer is that since impact hammers generally require an external force compressing the internal piston, the teeth will be displaced by the hammers only when they supply this compression force by contacting a hard soil.
Patent Cooperation Treaty application published under number WO 93/23210 on Nov. 25, 1993, entitled xe2x80x9cIMPACT DEVICExe2x80x9d and naming Jack Benton Ottestad as inventor describes a custom impact device mounted to an excavating bucket. While the device described by Ottestad is an improvement over the device of Mozer, it still has the above mentioned drawback that the blade is only actuated by the impact device when the blade is in a position to compress the internal piston of the impact device.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide an improved excavating bucket incorporating an impact actuator.
Another object of the invention is to provide an excavating bucket incorporating an impact actuator free of the above mentioned drawbacks of the prior art.
More specifically, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided an excavation bucket comprising:
a bucket body including a base portion and lateral side portions; the base portion having a longitudinal axis;
a movable floor so mounted to the bucket body as to (a) be longitudinally slidable between a retracted position and an extended position, and (b) provide a free space between the base portion and the movable floor; and
means for selectively slide the movable floor between the retracted and extended positions; the sliding means being mounted in the free space.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided an excavation bucket comprising:
a bucket body including a base portion and lateral side portions; the base portion having a longitudinal axis;
a movable head so mounted to the bucket body as to be longitudinally slidable between a retracted position and an extended position; the movable head including a movable head body provided with a proximate end and a distal end and at least one tool receiving aperture extending from the proximate end to the distal end;
a movable floor so mounted to the movable head body as to provide a free space between the base portion and the movable floor;
an impact actuator including an impact actuator body mounted to the bucket body and impact head so mounted to the actuator body as to be selectively movable between a retracted position and an extended position; the impact actuator being mounted in the free space; and
at least one tool configured and sized to be slidably inserted in the tool receiving aperture of the movable head body; when inserted in the tool receiving aperture, the tool being slidable between an extended position and a retracted position where the tool contacts the impact head; wherein the impact head, when in its extended position, (a) contacts the proximate end of the movable head body when the tool is in its extended position and (b) contacts the tool when the tool is in its retracted position.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following non restrictive description of preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.